And suddenly, I’ve become a part of your past
I’m becoming the part that don’t last
I’m losing you and it’s effortless
Without a sound, we lose sight of the ground
In the throw around
Never thought that you wanted to bring it down
I won’t let it go down ’til we torch it ourselves
– Over My Head (Cable Car), The Fray
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Nadine’s Apartment: Living Room
Johnny shoved his feet into his sneakers, dragged a sweatshirt over his head and practically ripped his keys off the hook by the door. He’d slept like the dead for the first time since that terrible day, and when he’d opened his eyes, Nadine was gone.
She’d gone out for her morning run without him, was out in the world where anyone could put their hands on her, grab her, hurt her—
A knock sounded just as he reached the door. He yanked it open, saw his sister on the other side, and then immediately tried to close it—but she slithered in before he could get it all the way shut. “Get out. I don’t have time for this. You’re not welcome here. Not now. Not ever again—”
“John, just let me—” Claudia held up her hands. “Let me just try to fix this, all right?”
“You think you can fix this?” Johnny closed the door. “Tell me how you are going to bring Nadine’s sister back?”
“Okay, so fix is a tall order, but you went to Daddy to ask for his help, okay? So I’m here because he has an idea that he thinks can make things better—”
“Oh, and did you tell Daddy why I need protection for Nadine?” Johnny demanded. Claudia sighed, looked away. “No, you didn’t.”
“I hate that this is driving a wedge between us. You know how much I love you. Do you think I wanted this? That I wanted to involve you? That I wanted her to get hurt? I mean, I don’t really care about her, but you do, and I want you to be happy.” Claudia stepped towards him, her dark eyes pleading. “Let me try to do something here—”
“There’s nothing—” Johnny stopped when he heard the door knob twisting, and Nadine stepped inside, her eyes shadowed and tired. “You’re back.” Relief flooded his body so swiftly he nearly felt dizzy.
“Yeah, I wasn’t up to the full run.” Nadine blinked when she saw Claudia in their living room. “Oh, um. Hi. I didn’t—” She pulled the ends of her jacket around her more tightly. “Did I know you were coming up today? I’ve been kind of scattered—”
“No, no, I just popped up on a whim. Sometimes the phone isn’t good enough, you know.” Claudia cleared her throat. “You know, I was sorry to hear about your sister. I don’t know what I’d do without John. I’d probably go crazy.”
“Thank you.” Nadine’s smile was faint. She set her phone, keys, and wallet in the dish by the door, headed for the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. “Um, I don’t know if Johnny called your family or not. The service is Tuesday. You can—I don’t know why you would, but you can come.”
“Of course. Of course. We’re coming up for that, and while we’re here, Daddy was hoping you and John would join us for dinner tomorrow night. He’s always liked the No Name, so he can get a table there if that works.”
“No Name.” Nadine’s brow furrowed and she looked at Johnny. “I’ve never heard of it—”
“Private dinner club,” Johnny said tightly, loathing his sister for taking advantage of this moment, for forcing herself into his life after she’d taken a torch to it in the first place. “It’s up here in Port Charles. Lots of, uh, business associates use it.”
“Oh. Yeah, I mean, whatever Johnny wants to do. Patrick said I can’t come back until after the services.” She fiddled with the cap on her water bottle. “Probably for the best. I’m so distracted, and I’m not sleeping—” Nadine broke off, flushed. “You don’t care about any of that. I’m sorry. I tend to just keep talking. Silence makes me nervous—”
“You’re fine,” Johnny cut in, almost too sharply, and she looked at him, her blue eyes wide. “It’s fine,” he said again, gentling his tone. She smiled but it was hesitant, and didn’t really reach her eyes.
“I’m going to take a shower. It was nice to see you,” she told Claudia.
Johnny waited for the shower to switch on before he looked at his sister. “Are you happy now? Manipulating a woman whose sister you killed—”
“Don’t put that on me, John. I warned you—”
“I never asked you to do a damn thing on my behalf,” Johnny said, stepping closer, pitching his voice scarcely above a whisper. “You keep trying to protecting me, and look what’s happened. You didn’t hire the woman who killed Jolene, but her blood is on your hands—”
“And yours, John. I didn’t want us to be here, but we are all the same,” Claudia retorted. “What are you going to do? Tell Nadine what happened to her sister? Go right ahead. She’ll head straight for the PCPD and divorce court right after that. Is that what you want? So come to dinner, let Dad protect your damn wife, and we’ll all move on.”
“We’ll be there. But you stay out of my life from now on, Claudia. We’re finished.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Drake Condo: Living Room
Robin hit delete on the answering machine, erasing another call from her uncle. She’d already cleared her voicemail. If Anna and Mac wanted answers, they were going to have to get it from someone else.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk to them?”
She looked up, found Patrick in the kitchen, cradling Emma in his arms, the bottle tipped up high so the baby wouldn’t suck in air and end up with gas. “No. What would that change?”
“I don’t know. I just—” He shook his head, looked down at Emma. “Never mind. They’re your family, and I don’t want you to feel pressured. You let me handle my dad the way I wanted to. I support whatever you choose.”
Robin folded her arms, looked at the floor. “But you have an opinion.”
“I hate that you’re hurt. I’m angry that your mother came here under false pretenses. That your uncle must have known and said nothing. Especially with what you went through with your dad a few years ago. I’m pissed at him for not being here, either,” he muttered, and she looked up, flashed a smile. “I want whatever stops you from feeling this way. You just had a baby. We have this beautiful little girl, and I hate that what they’ve done takes away from that.”
“It doesn’t.” Robin went to him, stroked her fingertip across Emma’s fuzzy hair. “It doesn’t. She’s here, and she’s healthy, and I had a relatively easy delivery. You’re such a good father. There are so many people who love her already. I just—” She stopped, trying to articulate what was swirling in her head. “When I was younger, when I lost my parents, I had pieces of family around me. I had my uncle. Felicia and her girls. Katherine Bell. Then Stone and Sonny. Brenda, Lois, Jason. Alan and Ned. I had a whole village of people who made sure I never felt alone. But despite that, I never stopped wanting my parents to come home. I wanted the life we had back. They’d married not long before the explosion. We were living together, a real family for the first time. I didn’t have it for long.”
“I’m sorry.”
“We never lived together again. Even when Mom came home. I’d already grown up, and I had my own life. She’d come to see me in Paris sometimes, or I’d go to her. But it was never the same. And Dad — it’s like he never really came home at all.” She bit her lip. “But then Mom said she was coming here, and she was here all the time. She helped me set up the nursery, and she was there during labor, and after—” Her throat tightened. “It was like having my mom again, and now I find out I was just a job. That she came here to question you, and I was just a way to get to you.”
“I don’t know if it was all an act,” Patrick said. “I think she took advantage of her assignment to spend time with you—”
“Patrick—” Robin turned away from him.
“Both things can be true,” he argued. “She screwed up not telling you, and I don’t like the idea that she was probing for information. It makes me go over and over all our conversations, wondering if I let anything slip. And I’m sure that’s driving you crazy, too. But she was also here for you. Setting up after the baby shower, with you in the hospital. You don’t have to lose the good memories because she had another reason to make them.” He looked as if he wanted to say more but turned his attention back to Emma who had finished her bottle.
“What? Finish what you wanted to say.” Robin folded her arms. “You think I’m overreacting.”
“No,” Patrick said forcefully. “No. I think you have every right to be angry, and I’ll support you. But you are angry, and maybe it’s affecting how we’re handling things with Anna and your uncle. We talked about legal liability — that so far, we hadn’t broken any laws. We still haven’t. We’re not obligated to report a murder. At best, we’re skirting ethics violations by not telling Nadine. But if we’d told Anna everything, we would be okay.”
“I don’t want to give her a reason to make things difficult for you. Or for Jason—”
“Jason’s in the clear. Jolene’s not connected to him. And I stand by everything I’ve done.”
Robin made a face, but she couldn’t argue with Patrick. She hadn’t wanted to give her mother anything at all, but she didn’t just owe it to Patrick to turn this situation over to the authorities. She owed it to Jason and Elizabeth. To Nadine, who’d lost her sister and had a right to an investigation. “You right. Do you want me to call them? To tell them what else we know?”
“Let me handle it. We’ll give Alexis another statement and turn over the footage we have of the nurse. And the toxicology reports. We’ll tell them everything goes through Alexis. But this stops being our problem. We have a life of our own, and I want to concentrate on that.”
Jacks House: Foyer
Carly took a step back when she opened the door, found Elizabeth on the other side. “I—I didn’t expect you to be the one to pick Morgan up.” She stepped aside to let Elizabeth in. “I thought Jason or Mama—”
“I had the time, and my grandmother’s back at the penthouse with Jake and Cam.” Elizabeth followed Carly into the living room. “Something came up and Jason had to go to the coffee house.”
“We could have rescheduled—um, excuse the mess.” Carly slid the magazines on the coffee table into a pile, and moved around to pick up some throw pillows and blankets. “Morgan and I had a movie night last night, and I—”
“We can reschedule if you want—”
“No, no, it’s—” Carly took a deep breath. “It’s fine. Morgan’s looking forward to spending time with Cam and his uncle. He hasn’t spent a lot of time with Jason since…” She rubbed her chest. “Anyway.” She blew out an irritated breath. “I should probably apologize to you for the hospital.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You don’t owe me an apology, not if you already talked to Jason. I gave as good as I got—”
“Yeah, I know. And I’m not going to promise to start liking you, because it’s not possible. But I—” Carly looked away, folded her arms, looking somewhat uncomfortable. Embarrassed even. “I made a scene with Robin, and it was all more annoying than it had to be, and I know Jason was ticked off. He’s not now, so I guess that’s because of you.”
“We didn’t talk about it.” When Carly snorted and rolled her eyes, Elizabeth insisted, “We really didn’t. Jason’s friendship with you is what it is. I’m not looking to get in the middle of it. And we both usually do better. It was a rough day.”
Carly made a face at her, and Elizabeth wondered if she was supposed to be more irritated, to give Carly someone to argue with. “Yeah, okay,” the blonde said finally. “I guess that’s fair.” She picked at the seam that ran along the top of the sofa. “I just hate that I did that to Jason. Especially over Robin. We’re never going to agree, me and him, not about her.”
“It was a rough day,” Elizabeth repeated. “Really, Carly—”
“I talk to Michael, you know. When I go to see him. I sit with him for hours, and I tell him what’s going on. I don’t leave you out of it, or anything. I tell him about his uncle, and how much he’d love his cousins—” Carly looked away, exhaled on a low breath. “I hate you for bringing Cameron into Morgan’s life, for making him so happy that he doesn’t ask about his brother anymore. And that’s such a stupid thing to hate you for.” Carly looked at her. ‘”Go ahead and add it to the list of things that make me a bad person. It just gets longer and longer, right?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together, considered her next words carefully. “It’s been hard knowing how much to talk about Michael with the boys. Around Jason. And maybe around you and Morgan. It’s such a painful, awful reality that you live with every day, and for a while, I couldn’t even get Jason to talk about it at all. I didn’t know if I should push. I just — I don’t want to do anything to make it worse.” She paused, but Carly said nothing, just kept picking at the sofa seam. “We don’t have to pretend to be best friends, Carly, just because our sons adore each other. Because you and Jason are friends, and that’s not going to change—”
“Friends—” Carly closed her eyes. “Sure. That’s what Jason and I are.” She brushed at a tear that had slid down her cheek. “Do you think I don’t know that Jason and I are friends mostly because he can’t get rid of me? God, don’t pretend you don’t know that’s why I hate you.”
Elizabeth bit her lip, stared at her hands. “I don’t know what you want me to say—”
“The two of you are friends in a way Jason and I never could be. I was always the one talking to him, and he’d listen, and I thought that made us friends. But he was never vulnerable to me. But you said it—you said you were there for him after Michael. And I did that to him. I hurt him so many ways that he never trusted me again, and I’ve hated Robin for starting it, and I’ve hated you for being there. Because when given a choice, Jason doesn’t pick me. Even as a friend.” Carly rose to her feet. “It’s a terrible thing to know about yourself that the person you count on the most can’t or won’t count on you.”
Elizabeth didn’t really know what to say to any of that. Because Carly wasn’t wrong. Jason didn’t rely on Carly or really trust her to do much, and he wasn’t wrong to feel that way. Every time Carly got involved in his life, she screwed something up — like Jake’s paternity. How different would things have been if Elizabeth had been the first to get to him—
“Thank you for not denying it,” Carly said. She smiled faintly. “We’re going to be civil because I love Jason, and he deserves to be happy. And I like your kids. But I’m never going to like you. I’m sorry. That’s just how it’s going to be. I’ll go get Morgan.”
PCPD: Commissioner’s Office
Anna leaned back in her chair, then looked across the desk to Mac. “Well, I can’t prove it, but what happened to Elizabeth Webber in September fits Andrei Karpov to the letter.”
“Patrick managed to cover the hospital pretty well. The DA says there’s nothing that we can use to force a subpoena. Not without calling in favors or tipping our hand to Nadine.”
“We may want to consider that, but let’s put it on the back burner for the moment. I told you that Karpov has been working for years to break into the South American market to funnel arms and weapons into Russia.”
“Yeah, something about the KGB and Putin, you said.” Mac scratched his temple. “I’m not one for geopolitics, Anna. Is that important?”
“Of course it is. It’s why I’m here, the WSB cares. We’ve been trying to get inside the organization for ages. The KGB dissolved after the Soviet Union collapsed, and Karpov turned to smuggling. Legally, his business is pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. He’s been growing his clientèle stateside.”
“Let me guess. He’s been focusing on clients in cities with ports,” Mac said, leaning forward.
“Precisely. This dispensary business? It screams Karpov. And if he was trying to get at Jason, well, he could take advantage of a glitch he created.” Anna pursed her lips. “The only problem is—”
“We can’t find out anything about the hospital’s suppliers without Patrick to smooth the way. Judging from that meeting yesterday, he’s not eager to help either of us—” Mac sighed. “I wish you’d have come clean about all of this when you came to town.”
Anna looked down at her hands, twisted the silver ring on her finger. “The mother in me wishes I had as well. But if I had, they might have closed ranks. I’d have never learned all the mystery swirling around this Johnny Zacchara. Robin might not have spoken so openly about the problems facing the hospital, the trouble with the nursing program. I wouldn’t have seen Patrick’s anxiety when she delivered — this was how it had to be. It kills me that I hurt my daughter, but I had to think of the greater good. She’ll understand. She’ll come around.”
“Well for your sake—” Mac began then closed his mouth when he heard footsteps in the hall. A moment later, Scott appeared, leaning against the door frame. Mac grimaced, got to his feet. “What are you doing here? I thought you had a case in Albany—”
“I do. We’re closed down for a few days. Judge has a conference.” Scott lifted his brows. “Anna. It’s good to see you.”
“Scotty. It’s been a long time.” Anna rose, went to hug him, and offered a kiss to the cheek. “Mac tells me you’ve been a special prosecutor with the DA’s office this year. Are you still doing that? Or in private practice again?”
“Little of both, and it looks like Mac’s been taking advantage of me being out of town to sneak some cases past me. Why didn’t you tell me Jolene Crowell is dead?”
“Because you were prosecuting Johnny Zacchara. Johnny’s not involved—Jolene’s a sister-in-law he never met. I didn’t know you were interested in coma patients.”
“Don’t be obtuse. When it comes to the Zaccharas, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Scott folded his arms. “You’ll keep me in the loop?”
“Won’t have a choice. You’ll call Floyd if I don’t.”
“And don’t forget it. Anna, good to see you.”
Mac sat back down, rubbed his temples. “The last thing this situation needed was Scott Baldwin. God help us all.”
Morgan Penthouse: Master Bedroom
Elizabeth laid back on the bed, closed her eyes. “I can see why parents leash their kids now.”
Jason grinned, sat on the edge of the bed next to her, kicked off his shoes. “It was your idea to have Morgan sleep over and you told your grandmother to go home.”
“I don’t know why I thought Spinelli would be any help. He just egged them on.” Elizabeth sat up, encircled Jason’s shoulders from behind. “But it was nice, wasn’t it?”
“To see Morgan running around and laughing? Yeah. He hasn’t done enough of it.” Jason turned his head slightly so that their mouths were only centimeters apart. “I like coming home to you. To all of this. Even when it’s chaos.”
“I like it, too.” Elizabeth combed her fingers through his hair, her smile broadening when he shifted, gently pushing to lay back on the bed. He rested beside her, leaning up on one elbow. She stroked his chest. “Did you get things set up for dinner?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Sunday. Can your grandmother baby sit, or do you want me to call Carly?”
“I’m sure Gram will do it, but I’ll double check.” She hesitated. “You should check in with Carly anyway, though. She…she seemed a little strange when I picked up Morgan.”
Jason frowned, tipped his head. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. She talked about visiting with Michael, and well, I don’t want to get into what we talked about. She just seems…off. Maybe it’s all starting to hit. She and Jax separated right before Sonny was shot. Then moving Sonny down the hall…” Elizabeth reached up, stroked his cheek. “It just made me feel sad.”
“I’ll check in,” he said. He kissed her lightly and laid down next to her. She snuggled next to him, draping one leg over his leg, both of them still fully dressed. But he didn’t care. These moments at the end of the day, when it was just the two of them—
He loved being with the boys, loved every minute of being a father—but there was something about just the two of them alone, together, when he held Elizabeth in his arms — everything felt just right. And safe.
He would do whatever he had to do to keep it that way.
No comments yet